The Colon Club

Short story: Has anyone every had hemoclips put in after a colonoscopy? Were you able to get an MRI?

Long Story: I had three hemoclips put in after my colonoscopy.

A note was added to my account that I should not get an MRI. So the one radiology franchise that my insurance will allow won't give me the MRI due to the hemoclips. (I need MRI for further investigation of adrenal mass found on CT) My GI doctor has now said they are safe for MRI and is working on providing documentation to the radiology company. My Oncologist says he has never had a radiology location deny an MRI due to hemoclips as he said that would mean half his patients couldn't get MRI's.

I'm confident 1 has fallen out having witnessed this with my own eyes and kept it as a momento lol. Hoping the others have as well.

I had to appeal with my insurance to go to a different location as I'm trying to move this along instead of "waiting" on people to do their job. I've gotten approved by the insurance to go to another location for a PET and MRI. I asked if the PET scan can be done first to determine if the clips have officially fallen out (cause naturally I'm still nervous about getting an MRI with them in there) but has anyone had any issue like this???????

Man, I have no idea if DH had those or not! I will go look at his post surgical report and see. In the mean time, I did find this info sheet on them that is interesting. It says most fall out 2-3 weeks after surgery. And you may not notice them in your stool. I guess a CT to see if they are still there or a colonoscopy would be helpful if the MRI people aren't. I do know DH has some clips in his liver, and his lung. And his testicles (that is from a vasectomy) . Not sure what they are made of though, but he has had more MRI's than I can count.

https://www.uwhealth.org/healthfacts/dhc/7708.pdf

You would be best to get a SOLID confirmation directly from your docs as there are a variety of clips used
and not all are MRI safe, as the following survey Google search shows.

hemoclips mri safety

I have a number of metallic "enhancements" from GIT and knee surgery
and as long as they are titanium ( NON ferromagnetic ) or plastic/composite etc. they should be MRI safe.

BE SAFE and make sure the Docs know what the heck they are "confirming" for you !!!

Best wishes
CRguy